Gifted & Talented eBulletin - Teaching Expertise

Effective G&T provision improves teaching and learning for all students – but do your colleagues realise this? This ebulletin issue of Gifted and Talented Update offers advice on raising awareness of the benefits G&T can bring to your school as a whole

As a follow-up to our last issue, here we provide an overview of some of the issues surrounding academic language for G&T learners, as it is readily apparent that formal English can be considered to be an additional language for many learners and perhaps even most disadvantaged learners

Advanced bilingual learners are the focus for this issue. We explain how to provide challenges for gifted and talented learners who speak English and other languages

Here we provide some guidance on the framing of the letter to parents, the kinds of information that should be included and thoughts on how communication with parents can be framed to avoid potential pitfalls

The Pupil and Parent Guarantees, that are currently the subject of a DCSF consultation, make specific reference to the provision for G&T learners. Here we consider what this might mean for your school

This G&T e-bulletin summarises the provision which schools will be expected to make concerning the pupil and parent guarantees

Without a system to identify G&T potential, it can take up to two years international new arrivals's language to develop enough to surface in formal written English. This issue, part of our occasional series on inclusion, shows how you can tell an EAL G&T student within six weeks of their arrival

As nationwide programmes to support G&T provision are on the wane, there is more work to be done at a school level. Here we look at how embedding good practice into classrooms begins with robust analysis of the data

The next two issues of this e-bulletin will analyse the critical assumptions and issues in Ofsted's Gifted and Talented Pupils in Schools report, published in December 2009 (ref 090132); specifically its findings and how schools can usefully respond

Second issue exploring how different characteristics such as gender, ethnicity and free school meals eligibility influence the probability of inclusion with G&T students

In this issue we explore what the DCSF School Census, January 2009 tells us about identification and how pupil characteristics affect the probability of inclusion within the national G&T population

In the second of our e-bulletins looking at guidance given to SIPs, we consider what questions you should be asking to evaluate your G&T provision prior to the visit from your improvement partner

This is the first issue of Optimus Education's new fortnightly e-bulletin, Gifted and Talented Update, which will focus on the ways that whole-school issues affect provision for more able and very able learners